Editor's note: This week, the Justice continues its profiles of new additions to the faculty.

JEREMY MUMFORD

History

As the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Atlantic World History, Mumford specializes in the shared culture and interactions of North and South America, Europe and Africa in the period between 1500 and 1800.

This semester Mumford will teach History 171a: "New World Revolutions, 1760-1824: United States, Haiti, Peru," which will explore the diversity and the common experience of the Americas in the era of the revolution, according to Mumford.

Next semester he will teach History 172a: "Native Peoples of the Americas to 1800," which is a survey of the history and culture of indigenous peoples from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina before and during colonialism.

"I am especially interested in the similarities and differences between the way different parts of the Americas have developed over the centuries, and my goal as a teacher is to explore that with students, with methods and sources drawn from history, literature and anthropology," Mumford said.

Mumford said he hopes to make an impact at Brandeis through the international and interdisciplinary focus of his teaching and research.

"I believe very strongly that the Americas have a shared story," Mumford said. "I think students can understand both our own country and the developing world much more profoundly by studying that shared story."

Mumford received his B.A. from Yale in history and an M.A. from Columbia in U.S. history. He is currently working toward a Ph.D. in Latin American history from Yale.



DIRCK ROOSEVELT,

Education Program

Roosevelt serves as an assistant director of the education program, director of the Master of the Arts in Teaching (MAT) and assistant professor of education. With over 25 years in teaching at pre-school through graduate school, Roosevelt joins Brandeis from the University of Michigan School of Education, where he was the director of teacher education and assistant professor since 2001.

Roosevelt will help manage the MAT in public elementary school teaching, a new 12-month intensive program at Brandeis. Students graduating with a MAT gain a Master's degree in teaching first through sixth grades. Roosevelt said that he expects 15 to 20 students to participate in this program beginning in the summer of 2005.

Additionally, Roosevelt said that he will be working to enhance the growing education program at Brandeis, which currently includes 80 undergraduate students and 16 graduate students.

"There's a lot of energy and activity going on in the area of education," Roosevelt said. "It's an exciting time in terms of education here."

This semester Roosevelt will teach an undergraduate course on social studies and how they are taught in the classroom. Next semester, Roosevelt will teach another course for those undergraduates who are student-teaching at local schools.

Roosevelt said he stresses creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

"Teaching properly requires someone who's intellectually active and somebody who does not merely learn and do techniques done by others, but also adapts and creates new technologies to fit her studies," Roosevelt said.



FRANCISCO JAVIER SANCHEZ, Romance and Comparative Literature

Originally from Spain, Sanchaez comes to Brandeis to teach first- and third-level Spanish, as well as a University Seminar in the spring.

When asked why he chose to teach at Brandeis, Sanchaez said: "Brandeis University appealed to me for its diversified community and its commitment to the humanities. Its name stands high as a research and teaching institution and I really wished to be a part of this dynamic environment."

Graduating from the University of Salamanca with a degree in English philology, Sanchaez emigrated to the United States to study African-American literature at North Carolina Central University. Currently he is working toward a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sanchaez added that because of his Spanish background, he thinks he brings a different perspective and culture to Brandeis.

"I intend to expand the horizons of both students and professors so that we can influence, enrich and teach other," he said. "I deeply believe that listening, being open-minded and learning about other cultures and other people is the path to understanding, respect, and, in the long run, world peace."



DEBBIE WEINSTEIN

Health: Science, Society and Policy

As a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Medicine, Weinstein will take part in an interdisciplinary, two-year position affiliated with the history and sociology departments.

"I'm excited about working at a school with the orientation of a top-notch liberal arts college and the strengths of a research university," Weinstein said. "The strong faculty in history and medical sociology were also a part of the position's appeal."

This semester Weinstein is teaching a course called Health and Healing in American History, and another course called Madness and Society in the Modern Era in the spring.

In her classes, Weinstein said that she emphasizes critical engagement with course material through interactive lectures and active participation in class discussion.

"I want students to analyze the arguments and evidence at work in their course readings, as well as developing their own arguments in their written assignments."

Weinstein added that her students often enrich her own understanding of the course material.

"My most successful courses have not only contributed to students' education, but have also benefited my own research by helping me to ask questions in new ways and pushing me to examine topics that I might have left unexplored," she said.

Weinstein has a Ph.D. from Harvard in the department of the history of science and a B.A. from Brown in feminism and science, which brought together the history of science, American history, women's studies and biology.



TRACY EDWARDS,

Philosophy and Women's Studies

Specializing in jurisprudence, philosophy of race and legal and social issues, Edwards serves as the Allen-Berenson visiting assistant professor.

Edwards will teach two courses in the spring called The First Amendment and Topics in Feminism and Philosophy: Race and Gender.

Edwards said that the students' and faculty's strong reputations for academic excellence were among the reasons she chose to teach at Brandeis.

"I am interested in continuing my exploration of the right to free expression as well as legal and social issues regarding gender and race within such a community. Both to share what, to my mind, is an exciting contemporary literature and to benefit from exposure from fresh perspectives," Edwards said.

Receiving her Master's and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, on top of a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Edwards said that she intends to focus on questions that are often sensitive and, as a result, are difficult to explore in her classes.

"I hope to continue the conversation, if one already exists at Brandeis University, or otherwise to start a conversation about issues that are at the fore of the national conscious and to offer settings that are conducive to communication and open to arguments supporting diverse positions," Edwards said. "It should be a blast!"



REBECCA SEIFERLE

English and American Literature

An award-winning poet and author, Seiferle, comes to Brandeis as the Jacob Ziskind Visiting Poet in residence. Seiferle will teach a couple of directed writing seminars and work with students in developing their own work.

Hailing from New Mexico, Seiferle came to Brandeis at the invitation of English professor Olga Broumas. Seiferle said she thought it was a wonderful opportunity.

"I was...aware of the intellectual depth and passionate engagement of the community at Brandeis and felt that I would be able to contribute and learn from it," she said.

Seiferle said she looks forward to working with students and helping them craft their written works.

"As a writer, most of my impact upon the community will be through language, the language of writing, engagement with others about writing and reading, both informally and in the classroom," she said. "I hope to bring a sense of that other world to which poetry welcomes us and by which it challenges us, of the richness of the possibilities of being and of imaginative expression that is found in that space that poetry creates."

Seiferle has a B.A. in English and history, in addition to an M.F.A. in poetry from Warren Wilson College.